The Irish love reading newspapers, whether they are national or local. It's a joy to see the papers piled high at my local store in the Donegal town of Ramelton in the morning and note their disappearance by the evening.

According to the latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS), 86% of the country's population regularly reads a paper. And most of them read more than one title a week.

Though overall readership has declined in the last 12 months, it is only by a mere 10,000 (0.28%) to 3,522,000 readers.

I think Frank Cullen, co-ordinating director of the National Newspapers of Ireland, is right to ascribe this slight fall to the country's dire economic circumstances. It's due to a reduction in people at work, he said.

Top of the daily readership league is the Irish Independent, having gained a further 5,000 readers to record a total of 560,000.

The Irish Times lost 5,000, making its total 359,000, and the Irish Examiner shed 6,000 readers to register a total of 204,000.

There were more dramatic declines for the red-top dailies. The Irish Daily Star saw readership decline by 52,000 to 410,000 and the Irish Sun was down by 26,000 to 285,000. The Irish Mail fell by 2,000 to 144,000.

As for the Sundays, the Sunday Independent lost 11,000 but maintains its market lead with a readership of 992,000.

The Sunday Times added an extra 51,000 readers and now has 422,000. The Sunday Business Post also upped its readership by almost 20% to 193,000.

The Irish Mail on Sunday' grew to 332,000 after picking up 37,000 extra readers. The Sunday World dropped by 40,000 to 843,000.

Incidentally, I think the Irish Independent will just have enjoyed a good sales week. Every day, it carried a 1970s' issue of DC Thomson's famous comics, such as The Beano, The Dandy and The Beezer. I saw kids reading them in the street. An excellent wheeze!